My Greatest Fear In Life Is Tomorrow… åI Stopped Going To Church When I Was In High School
it the best you can ever give a pilot. The best opportunity is to be in charge at the golden age of an institution. It turns out to be me by providence. I am so happy. I am so passionate about that college, not only about the college, but our host, Zaria. No matter what you say about Zaria, it has only one industry –education. There is no aspect of education that is not in Zaria. The community is very lucky and it is something dear to their hearts because it is the only industry they have. Students go into Zaria with their pocket money and they don’t go back home with it. That is what drives their economy –the pocket money of students. I am so elated because the school somehow has graduated to hold its own irrespective of what happened when it was neglected. The engineering aspect quickly recovered. It takes a while for flying to be, that’s what we are doing to get it back so that our products will be the first choice in the world like before. It was what you needed to do to be trained in Zaria as a pilot and you would be the first to be called for the job. That was what it was. I want to get it back. I want our products to be the first choice for any employment both in engineering and flying.
Right now the college is going through re-certification. The NCAA inspectors are on ground going through our books, our documents and, the process. They have their own checklists and you must pass through that check before you can be given re-certification. The challenges I will say is to keep the standards and improve on it. The challenges I am facing is not really in the school, not in the production of the aviation, the challenges are basically on the support staff. We need to train them. They’ve been doing some training but we need to really intensify that. With the technical personnel, it is easy because they are the operators and have the licence. So those ones you don’t have to tell them anything. If they do not do anything, they will lose the licence. If they do not improve they have themselves to blame. It is a strictly professional issue and the same pattern is followed all over the world. It is standard because aviation has only one language. For the support staff, they are not going through such rigorous test. We have to introduce some programmes so as to bring up their standards. It is not that they are bad people; the culture is not there yet. That is what I have been trying to do, to get it back to the legacy left there for us by the foreigners. When they were there, they supervised everything. Over the years, because of due process not being followed, all sorts of people got into the place, non-technical staff in the college where professionals are to be moulded. We are not going to let them go, we don’t have to, and we just have to re-train them, change their attitude and culture. This is a training institution, I don’t see the reason we cannot train our own support staff too. We paid so much attention on the products and the technical areas. These other areas, if we do not do anything, they will drag us down. A lot of premium must be placed on them. We are looking at the money: government has been very supportive that we must train the support staff. We need them to speed with the rest of the college.
The 1964 Act No. 31 is the existing law governing the school. But things have changed. Yes, there is good news; I have just been told that the Ministry of Justice, the Attorney General’s office just appended the no objection to the draft enabling law. That would treat or make the college a tertiary institution so that we can start awarding degrees and diplomas. The next step is for the draft law to go to the Federal Executive Council and then it will be transmitted to the National Assembly and from there it will be passed and it becomes Law.
For now, certificates are not equivalent to licences. But in the aviation world it is more than that. We operate under the license system like professionals. Right now it will be certificates and also licences. Licenses mean you are responsible and could even go to jail for any dereliction of duty. But certificate, nobody jails you. Just like your driver’s licence, if you do anything wrong, you will be punished and sent to jail. We have always awarded licenses, now we will have to award certificates. Should anybody lose the licence, because there are a lot of conditions attached to the licence, it could be health, it could be age, but certificate is yours. When you have licence it is time bound, you have to undergo current training and fresh training, cabin crew, engineer, pilot, etc. It is something to fall back on. It broadens your
know-how.
I am the third student of the college to become rector after Capt. Araba and the first female pilot in Nigeria Capt. Chinyere Kalu. I have gone round and know so much about the school. It’s a beautiful place.
It is certainly not flying. I was good at the sciences and wanted to go into electrical engineering. Of course, I had the FG’s scholarship and was waiting for the school in the United States, but when I was called to Zaria, my mind changed from what I saw in the school. The ambience was very aesthetic, the serene nature of the school, the people. I was to go to the western world, the Whiteman’s land but in Zaria, I saw and met a lot of white guys. Young people of my own age and I made up my mind that I wanted to become a pilot. It was not easy for me. But the rest is now history.
In fairness, I have never been out of a job in my life and I am grateful to God. Some of my colleagues had walked out of jobs and found it difficult getting back into it, or were sacked. Getting to the top, I had to work hard. I did not go through where nobody liked me. It is just that, yes, they complained that I was arrogant. But it was not on purpose, it was just me. I was just myself. Later on, they found out I was harmless. Along the line of course, it could not be smooth sailing, one or two guys who did not like your guts, doing nothing. I had the majority of my superior on my side. For one reason or the other, they just felt I was harmless to them. I was determined that I would always do my job. I was never or had never been told while growing up in my career that I did not do my job. No, they had always said I was serious. ‘He is hard working and that paid off.’
I lost my mum when I was four years old, so my father had to remarry. I spent most of my time with my grandparents, particularly after my mother died. Even when I was in school, I would rather go to them than go to my dad. They spoilt me. I had the best. Everything I wanted and whatever my colleagues in school had, my grandparents made sure I had. I was never made uncomfortable among my contemporaries. Whatever they had, they tried to make me have it so that I would not be jealous. It was a Christian thing. I had to be forced to go to church while growing up with them. The first time I had the freedom of not going to church, I did not go to church again. I felt then I was no longer under their control in high school so they couldn’t cane or flog me. At another time when I now got married to my wife, a church person again, and I couldn’t have my way. She made sure I am always with her in the church.
My maternal grandfather made me read a particular part of the Bible anytime I was with him. That was the book of Proverbs. That Bible portion guided my life. Everything that I am today is based on the book of Proverbs. I had no choice, I had to be honest, I could not tell lies, I got beaten for even the least. I grew up strictly with these people that made me understand that you needed to work very hard to succeed and you should accept nothing but the best and they said it very often. That is the problem, in my life, when you insist on
nothing but the best; you get the best in life.
It is tomorrow. Today, I handled today at least. I handled yesterday. Today, I think I can survive but tomorrow, I don’t know. That’s my fear.
I have not even started because it has to be with my environment. I wish I could contribute more to make people happier. I believe that to be successful, you must put a smile on a child or on the faces of people. That is to me success. I wish I could do that, I wish I had the power, the capacity, I wish I am in a position to do good.
I just want people around me to be happy. As a matter of fact, I just believe that whatever affects me like in a country where we are today, what affects me from Lagos, affects somebody in Maiduguri or Sokoto or any other part. It saddens me that most of us do not reason like that. We are too sectional. My hope is that someday, I may not be alive, that Nigerians will see themselves as who we are, with no thought of division but as human beings, somebody you can work with. I can’t stand or feel it if you are not serious. I dislike unserious people. I don’t believe that somebody cannot do things to the best of his ability because I try to do things to the best of my ability. When I see people who are not trying enough, I feel sad. Like today I have said it to my staff four or five times, I hardly get people to talk to me like that. I try to do it; you have to work hard. I believe in the best.
I have two boys. One has just graduated studying Mechanical Engineering. The other is in the State University of Buffalo, New York. He did Masters in Massachusetts, in Waltham, United States. I thank God for my family. We are closely knit.
On my absence, sometimes I will be in Lagos and I do not get to see them because of work. I think my family know that going away is what I do. But I always come back home. But going away is what I do; I have been going away all my life. It’s unfortunate for my wife though she is a lovely wife; she has been very supportive from the time we got married till now. She understands, she cried a lot daily that I was always going away. But she knew I was going to be a pilot. She is a lawyer; she has always had her own chambers and she is okay. She is a good woman.
Friendship is a relationship that is based on trust. Like the Minister of Aviation, Chief Osita Chidoka will say, ‘In God we trust, every other person you have to prove.’ Yes, friendship is based on trust. On my first encounter with anybody, it is a blank cheque. I am not a stereotype kind of person. Until you prove yourself otherwise, I take you as a friend. Just meeting you, I don’t play judge. You have to prove that you are not worthy. And even then, I will give you one more chance to prove yourself before I say you will now be avoided.
I can’t really say because I have had so many lows but I cannot pinpoint, graduate or grade the lows in my life. But life is all about lows. I believe that you can always get up –that drives me. To me, failure is a lesson that should not be repeated. When people tell me that I am not up to speed, it touches me because I know that I must have tried. I try to give out my best.
I like to write but I don’t do that these days. I like to put my points on paper, computer, tablet, etc. I have published a book, ‘The Devil Must Be Laughing’ and written other several manuscripts, one ready to go to the press. They are just lying down there. I keep changing the chapters of many of the books. I am also doing some professional books and I hope very soon I will devote much time to them and get it published to help my colleagues and students. I think I have a lot of story to tell about my experience in flying management and the regulatory aspect of it. It will be like a quote in my life.
I wake up at 4:30 every day in the morning. I open my eyes, try to see my surroundings and by 5 O’clock I start getting up, ready for the day. I always try to get to the office by 7 O’clock. The workers open by 8am but that one hour is the most productive part of my day as there is nobody around me, apart from the security. Once they get in that is the day. But I would have done a lot for the day.
A Nigerian, Dr. Olumide Bernard Aliu, is the President of International Civil Aviation Organisation. He did not get there without working hard. We will get there. I can see us getting there, surpassing our expectations. But it is the will to do it that is required. Right now we have a minister that is trying to supply the will. Once the will is there, I know we are capable of having the expertise to get there. Nobody can say that the Nigerian aviator averagely cannot match any aviator in the world. We all have been well trained to the level that we can hold our own both from the regulatory side and the service side.
I am not satisfied yet. We can do better than what we are doing now. Some of the things we need to do are not all about money. It is just about the attitude of the people. Aviation has one advantage and that is because majority of the technical people are subjected by regulation or by law to go for refresher courses and I know, the advantage is that they must go for current trainings to gather more experiences. We will get there; Nigeria’s aviation sector will be the envy, at least in Africa to start with. We were there and we will get there. If we could do the Ebola on our own, why can’t we do it? Even the United States of America are sending their experts here to come and see how we contained Ebola.
I love to write. If I am lucky enough, I will engage myself in passing on to the younger generation my experiences by giving lectures, career talks. I think I should be able to do that. I think the best thing you can give the younger generation is to guide them, so that they will not repeat mistakes of the past.
Aviation should be seen as a vehicle for economic development. We have seen countries do that. Look at Dubai in UAE. It is the most versatile vehicle to accelerate any economy. We should not be in a hurry that aviation is not making money in Nigeria. It is just the vehicle. It is like saying we are not making money on roads. Road is another means of opening up the economy but nobody ever says we are not making money on our roads. Aviation is highly capital intensive, but then we should realise that the profit is immeasurable.
It is a shame that there is a lot of encroachment on our lands. The school is yet to be fenced and it is not the best for us. The safety inspection and the ICAO officials always frown at the situation. I want the FG to look into the perimeter fencing. I don’t want to go into any details about the consultancy and the contracts but we should as a matter of priority, do more so that foreign students could return. As I speak with you, countries like Central African Republic made request for assistance in the training of their students to put their aviation in proper shape and we are looking into that. There is the urgent need to update the facilities in the school and re-train the staff. We should not be found wanting and we must be up to date. I know that the Federal Ministry of Aviation has started the process of getting the school back on track and with the kind of minister we have now, I think it will not be long before we get there again.